Collaborative Research: An Integrated Approach to Understanding the Role of Climate-Vegetation-Fire Interactions in Boreal Forest Responses to Climatic Change

PI建议利用古植物学和古地质化学数据以及为了解现代植被分布控制而开发的模型，以探索阿拉斯加布鲁克斯山脉北部苔原交错带复杂进退和进一步进退背后的基本机制。古植物学证据将被用来检验几种不同的方法，以物种级别的分辨率识别交错带的运动，并随着气候变量(温度、降水量和降水的季节性)的变化而变化。该分析将提供独立的气候和植被数据集。气候数据集将用于驱动生态系统模型，以模拟气候变化下植被的变化。这项研究的结果将提供一个有用的预测能力，在试图预测北方森林生态系统对未来气候变化的反应时，将气候引起的变化与气候-植被系统中的反馈引起的变化区分开来。

The PIs propose to use paleobotanical and paleogeochemical data with a model developed for understanding modern controls on vegetation distribution to explore the fundamental mechanisms behind complex advance, retreat, and further advance of a boreal-tundra ecotone along the Brooks Range in Alaska. The paleobotanical evidence will be used to examine several different approaches to discern movements of the ecotone with a species-level resolution with the changes in climate variables (temperature, precipitation amount, and seasonality of precipitation). The analysis will provide independent climate and vegetation datasets. The climate dataset will be used to drive an ecosystem model to simulate changing vegetation under changing climate. The results of the study will provide a useful predictive capability for separating climate-induced changes from those caused by feedbacks in the climate-vegetation system when attempting predictions of boreal forest ecosystem responses to future climate change.